The Komsa culture () was a

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Ancient Greek language, Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic i ...

culture of

hunter-gatherer A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived Lifestyle, lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, esp ...

s that existed from around 10,000 BC in

Northern Norway Northern Norway (, , ; ) is a geographical region of Norway, consisting of the three northernmost counties Nordland, Troms and Finnmark, in total about 35% of the Norwegian mainland. Some of the largest towns in Northern Norway (from south to no ...

. The culture is named after Mount Komsa in the present-day

Alta Municipality Alta (; ; ; ) is the most populated List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Finnmark Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Alta (town), town of Alta. Some of the main villages in the ...

Finnmark Finnmark (; ; ; ; ) is a counties of Norway, county in northern Norway. By land, it borders Troms county to the west, Finland's Lapland (Finland), Lapland region to the south, and Russia's Murmansk Oblast to the east, and by water, the Norweg ...

county, where the remains of the culture were first discovered. The term was first used by the Norwegian archaeologist

Anders Nummedal Anders Johnsen Nummedal (January 27, 1867 – March 6, 1944) was a Norwegian archaeologist. He is known for discovering the Fosna culture. Nummedal was educated as a geologist, and in 1909 he was employed as a teacher at Kristiansund High School ...

(1867–1944) after the discoveries he made on Mount Komsa in 1925. The distinction between a "Komsa" type of stone-tool culture north of the

Arctic Circle The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the northernmost of the five major circle of latitude, circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth at about 66° 34' N. Its southern counterpart is the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic Circl ...

and a "

Fosna Kristiansund (, ; historically spelled Christianssund and earlier named Fosna) is a municipality on the western coast of Norway in the Nordmøre district of Møre og Romsdal county. The administrative center of the municipality is the town of K ...

" type from

Trøndelag Trøndelag (; or is a county and coextensive with the Trøndelag region (also known as ''Midt-Norge'' or ''Midt-Noreg,'' "Mid-Norway") in the central part of Norway. It was created in 1687, then named Trondhjem County (); in 1804 the county was ...

Oslofjord The Oslofjord (, ; ) is an inlet in southeastern Norway. The fjord begins at the small village of Bonn in Frogn, Frogn Municipality and stretching northwards to the city of Oslo, and then curving to the east and then south again. It then flows s ...

was rendered obsolete in the 1970s. Nowadays both phenomena are ascribed to different types of tools of the same culture. Recent archaeological finds from

Finnish Lapland Lapland is the largest and northernmost Regions of Finland, region of Finland. The 21 municipalities in the region cooperate in a Regional Council. Lapland borders the Finnish region of North Ostrobothnia in the south. It also borders the Gul ...

were originally thought to represent an inland aspect of the Komsa culture equally old as the earliest finds from the Norwegian coast. However, this material is now considered to be affiliated with the contemporary Post-

Swiderian culture The Swiderian culture is an Upper Palaeolithic/Mesolithic cultural complex, centred on the area of modern Poland. The type-site is ''Świdry Wielkie'', in Otwock near the Swider River, a tributary to the Vistula River, in Masovia. The Swiderian ...

of North Central

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and the eastern

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

and thus to represent a separate early incursion into northernmost

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

. The commonly held view today is that the earliest settlement of the North Norwegian coast originated on the western and southwestern coast of Norway and ultimately in the final Palaeolithic

Ahrensburg culture The Ahrensburg culture or Ahrensburgian (c. 12,900 to 11,700 BP) was a late Upper Paleolithic nomadic hunter culture (or technocomplex) in north-central Europe during the Younger Dryas, the last spell of cold at the end of the Weichsel glaci ...

of northwestern Europe. The Komsa are thought to have followed the Norwegian coastline when receding

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate be ...

at the end of the last

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...

(between 11,000 and 8000 BC) opened up new areas for settlement. It was formerly believed that some elements may have moved into modern-day

from the northeast, possibly coming from ice-free coasts of the

Kola Peninsula The Kola Peninsula (; ) is a peninsula in the extreme northwest of Russia, and one of the largest peninsulas of Europe. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely inside the Arctic Circle and is border ...

. However, recent research indicates that a number of the coastal sites in the

Varangerfjord The Varangerfjord (; ; ; ) is the easternmost fjord in Norway, north of Finland. The fjord is located in Finnmark county between the Varanger Peninsula and the mainland of Norway. Extents The fjord flows through the municipalities of Vardø ...

area previously attributed to the second phase of the "Komsa" continuum actually represent an early incursion from the southeast (northwestern Russia) and are related to the early Post-Swiderian influx discovered in northernmost Finnish Lapland. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, also called "true seal" ** Fur seal ** Eared seal * Seal ( ...

hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen. In comparison to the southern Norway's contemporary

variety of this same culture, stone tools and other implements appear relatively crude. This has been explained with a paucity of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

stone in the region.

References

Other sources

*Clark, Grahame (2009) ''The Earlier Stone Age Settlement of Scandinavia'' (Cambridge University Press) *Hansen, Lars Ivar and

Bjørnar Olsen Bjørnar Julius Olsen (born 2 January 1958, Finnmark, Norway) is professor at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway. He is a Norwegian archaeologist who specializes in archaeological theory, material culture, museology, northern/Arctic archaeology, ...

(2004) ''Samenes Historie: Fram til 1750'' (Cappelen Akademisk) * Olsen, Bjørnar (1994) ''Bosetning og samfunn i Finnmarks forhistorie'' (Universitetsforlaget) * Olsen, Bjørnar (1997) ''Fra ting til tekst: Teoretiske perspektiv i arkeologisk forskning'' (Universitetsforlaget) {{ISBN, 978-82-00-22890-5 Mesolithic cultures of Europe Archaeological cultures of Europe Archaeology of Norway Nordic Stone Age Prehistory of the Arctic Peopling of Europe 10th-millennium BC establishments

See also

References

Other sources